Real-world neuroscience experiments show diversity in learning new motor skills

Researchers from Imperial College London have shown how the whole body changes as they learn new movement-based skills.

Using a new data-driven approach to analyze full-body movement during motor learning in the real world, the researchers demonstrated full-body involvement in the learning process and identified key joint movement for learning. The approach and subsequent findings highlight the importance of studying human neuroscience in nature and how it could help strengthen research on movement disorders and rehabilitation.

Playing billiards; analyze movement

Neuroscience experiments, which investigate the brain and nervous system, are usually conducted in a laboratory setting. However, these aren’t necessarily the best way to study neuroscience as laboratory conditions may not accurately reflect the real world environment.

Now, Professor Aldo Faisal and Dr Shlomi Haar of Imperial’s Brain and Behavior lab have brought neuroscience to the real world by using billiards to understand how people learn movement skills using all parts of their body.

The researchers did this by placing sensors on the bodies of 30 individuals who were learning to play pool for the first time. The sensors recorded the movements of the limbs and torso and their data was uploaded to a computer for analysis.

The data helped the researchers reconstruct the movement of the complete skeleton as an avatar. This not only allowed for full-body visualization, but also allowed for an accurate analysis of movement in each individual joint and holistic movement, or the whole body.

By measuring the movements of the whole body, they found that the learning happens from head to toe: although the main movement was in the elbow of the arm holding the cue, as can be expected with billiards, the whole body also changed and improved its learning engine. This data-driven approach to neuroscience adds more detail to what we know about motor learning, showing that it is a whole body experience.

Learning with the whole body

Lead researcher, Professor Aldo Faisal of the Departments of Informatics and Bioengineering, said: ‘The learning pool does not require pre-existing technical skills, so it was a good way to measure how humans learn a new skill. We have found that when you are learning a new skillful skill, every part of the body is learning. “

The data also showed that learning mechanisms vary from person to person and that, just like learning in school, each person learns motor control differently. Of the 30 participants who completed the same task, it was clear that there were two types of learners using different learning mechanisms.

Professor Faisal said: ‘Each of these participants had a predominant learning method. Only once we introduce topics with real-world complexity, we see that each person is different and we see what different mechanisms come up.’

Real world applications

The researchers say their findings add to the knowledge we have of how the body learns to move and also how the body might relearn to move after stroke. This wild and more natural approach to neuroscience could help bridge the gap between the real world and classic motor control experiments in the laboratory.

Understanding how between-joint and whole-body learning occurs has translational potential in rehabilitative learning, as well as sports science. For example, researchers show that while learning billiards, learning is faster in the shoulder, but requires movement in the elbow and even more in the wrist. This is perfectly in line with known phenomena from stroke recovery where shoulder motion is the first to recover and individual fingers are the last. Similarly, when learning to play a sport, people learn to optimize body maneuvers first, then detailed techniques.

Co-author, Dr. Shlomi Haar of Imperial’s Department of Brain Sciences, said, “This real-world approach to neuroscience shows that we don’t have to manipulate the world to find what we’re looking for. Instead, we can observe the world and extract the meaning from people’s movement and brain activity as they perform their tasks in the real world and exhibit free behavior.

“The way the data unfolded told stories: stories about learning through the body and stories of different learning mechanisms. This demonstrates the value of testing in the real world.”

This work is part of a larger project on real-world motor learning skills. These studies include studying brain activity while learning real-world tasks and using virtual reality to embody motor learning.